I was introduced to nukazuke by a friend of mine who’d spent a lot of time in Japan. A bit of reading led me to believe that I could probably manage to pull off this kind of pickle, but then for years that’s where I was stuck.

I never actually got around to finding where to buy rice bran, or getting a container I could use to pickle in, or really doing any sort of actual prep or execution towards making these pickles.

Finally last weekend things came together and Cin and I managed to have time and supplies to get started.

I pieced together a plan from a variety of guides online.
Wandering Spoon‘s post about Nukazuke
Joi Ito‘s guide to Nukamiso
A post in the egullet forums by helenjp
The Black Moon‘s page on Tsukemono

Here’s what I came up with:

1kg of rice bran (米糠 mǐkāng)
670 ml of water
330 ml of tsingtao
150 g of salt （盐 yán）
a 2.5×5 piece of seaweed, soaked in cold water (海带 hǎidài)
1 slice of bread
a handful of cabbage, about 100g (白菜 báicài)

I also decided to try adding:
a few dried red peppers （干辣椒 gānlàjiāo）
a few dried mushrooms （干香菇 gānxiānggū）
a couple cloves of garlic, peeled （大蒜 dàsuàn）

These ended up buried in the mix.

I was going to do twice as much, but as I was weighing out the rice bran, I realized that it was a lot more voluminous than I’d expected.

The first step was to toast the bran. This proved not very easy to do in our limited kitchen, so we did it in a lot of batches. In our case, toasting meant mainly getting it hot, scorching the bottom, then making a mess trying to stir more. The end result is a very uneven toasting.

Next up, boil the water, salt, and beer. Then we broke up the bread and dropped it in and waited for it all to cool down.

Mixing up the bran and water to achieve a consistency something like wet sand.

After this, though we neglected to get pictures as our hands were covered in bran at this point, was burying the starter cabbage and then finally wiping down the sides and setting it down to wait for a day.

Some other (crappy) photos of this process are on my flickr set.

back to Ferments

Later still, while living at the corner of Dongzhimen Beixiaojie (东直门北小街) and Dongzhimen Nei (东直门内）I came across a reference on a friend-of-a-friend’s blog (via a tweet of Beijing Haochi) about where to find specialty flours for bread making, and yet somehow I never actually made it 100 meters down the street to check it out. I even got my bike repaired next door!

Finally, last weekend I managed to swing by and check the place out, having already struck out trying to find rice bran at another grain type shop up near the Lama temple.

The place is kind of a mess inside, though the couple running the shop were pretty great. They’re from Dong Bei and offered me some really tasty hazelnuts. They mentioned that all sorts of foreigners come looking for special flours and brown rice and such, as well.

[Map]
19 Dongzhimen Nanxiaojie, Dongcheng District (150m south of Gui Jie)
Tel: (010) 8401 7569
东城区东直门南小街19号

So I did what any reasonable food-interested nerd would do and started searching for how to get a sourdough culture started.

After reading a few different guides, most of which seemed intimidating and complicated, I decided “to hell with all that!” and got started loosely following the instructions on this very approachable guide.

I had an empty jar that previously contained bottled spaghetti sauce, a large bag of Chinese all-purpose flour sitting in a larger box that used to hold frosted mini wheats, and as much Beijing tap water as I needed.

I mixed together equal parts by weight of water and flour, and let it sit out for a couple days uncovered. After that, I started regularly “feeding” the culture, which involved stirring it up, pouring some out, and then replacing with new flour and water.

After a few days, you can imagine my surprise when I noticed that it was bubbling up and had a not unpleasant smell. I’d expected some kind of foul spoilage with colorful mold and putrid odor. (All of these I have been treated to since in other failed attempts to start a culture.)

It was only then, culture alive and bubbling, that I decided to give it a name: Melvin. I think my sister Cara and I were hanging around on the roof and possibly drunk when we came up with that one, but either way the name stuck.

I started trying to use Melvin to make bread, and the first few loaves turned out a little… flat, but with repeated effort I was eventually turning out tasty little loaves.

Eventually though I moved to a new apartment with no oven, and I gave Melvin to my mother, where he continues to thrive and provide delicious local Beijing sourdough flavor to those fortunate to be a guest to dinner when my mother entertains.

from portrait of an LBX

Speaking of laowai, that’s the other word that gets our goat. Laowai — along with dialectical equivalents: lowei, waigolo, gueilo, etc. — means “foreigner,” but it is the slang way of saying it compared with the proper term waiguoren (compare the word “Paki” for “Pakistani” or the French slang “ricain”, semi-derogatory shortening of the formal demonym “américain”). Just about every Chinese in the country will shout this out from either pure stupefaction at seeing us or just to let everybody know what’s coming through town (imagine the scene from Blazing Saddles when the town drunk is screaming, “the new sheriff’s a ni**er!”). I’ve tried explaining to countless Chinese why we don’t like it when people shout laowai out in front of our faces. We know we’re different, that we come from somewhere else, that our eyes and noses and hair and whatever other parts don’t look like theirs — we know all of that very, very well, and when we’re trying to initiate contact with a new person, the last thing we want is for them to turn to their buddies laughing and say “laowai” as though a stray dog had just started talking. Every time I explain why this irks us, they just give me blank faces and say, “but that’s just the word we use for you… we don’t mean anything by it.” I suppose they, coming from one of the world’s most insular societies, have absolutely no idea what this must feel like, and rationally this shouldn’t be a problem for smart people like Andy and me. But hearing it thirty times a day, in addition to all the other stupid jeers, just really wears us thin, especially when we’re tired or in a bad mood (see above). I do suppose that if you went back a hundred years, before there was any idea of political correctness or courtesy for people who look *different*, and asked even an educated, open-minded man in the American South why he used the word, “ni**er” to refer to black people, he probably would have responded, “well, that’s just the word we use for ‘em… we don’t mean nothin’ by it.” Maybe when my grandkids come to China, things will be different. Until then, we grind our teeth and bear it.

from a thread on the something awful forums

uick question, how does everyone feel about this word? I personally got no issue with it in the slightest and use it to refer to myself or other foreigners all the time. However, in recent months I’ve met more and more people (usually Chinese-literate-just-outta-college kids) who feel all offended by it.

One girl I work with (Actually the same one I mentioned earlier about the IN AMERICA WE DO IT THIS WAY thing) was all pissed when she heard our place’s boss boasting(?) to some dude about how she had about 30 “laowais” working for her. She was all, “Why doesn’t she just use “外国人!” I personally see laowai as a more colloquial but more or less un-pejorative term for 外国人.

I’m not personally offended by it, my friends refer to me as a laowai. My boss, who lived in Beijing for a number of years seems to think it’s offensive though. He prefers wàiguó rén. I think maybe in bigger cities it has generated a negative connotation but here in a relatively remote southern boom town, where foreigners have rarely been seen before, laowai seems like the defacto term and I don’t take offense. Maybe it’s like a black/African American thing?

That’s pretty much my feeling on it. Laowai has pejorative connotations but when most people use it I don’t think they mean to include those.

Of course, China isn’t that far along with the whole “racism is bad” thing and you do probably run into more people using it in a nasty or superior way, and there’s a little bit of difference (probably superiority) built into the way Chinese people talk about race anyway (white people, black people, red people, yellow TYPE people…) so maybe it’s a little worse than “black / African American” but this is all pretty nebulous anyway and really if I had to choose I’d say go ahead and keep calling me a chalkie just stop doing the farmer blow on the sidewalk in front of my apartment and I’ll call it even.

as for the laowai thing… yea, i went through a phase where i didn’t like it, but meh, bitch all you want its never going to change… might as well embrace it.

From a chat where I asked about differences:

老外 is more 口语
外国人 is more formal
Also
老外 is probably used to refer to white people
外国人 is more neutural
neutral

Also, I just asked on quora.

Luckily so far the only 2:30 games I’ve been really anxious to see have fallen on days where I didn’t have work the next day, and so, it’s been a lot of fun. It’s a really entertaining experience to be in a bar at 3 in the morning surrounded by equally enthused people chanting USA. It’s even more fun, I think, when the other half of the bar is English and has much more creative cheers only to get drowned out by an even louder round of U!S!A! Thankfully, the experience was a pretty fun feel rather than one of unveiled hostility or contempt. I was standing next to this Brit and he had the good humor to answer some of my rooted-in-ignorance questions (mostly about the lineups of both teams since I really don’t know anything).

I’ve started reading The Goal Post since I can’t be bothered to go out and find commentary myself, I’m relying on their “Best of AM/PM” digests to keep me somewhat informed. So far so good, I guess.

GOOO USA! (ps thx Green)

As such we’ve chatted about it a bit as I’ve played around with it. I am definitely a subvocalizer and so presumably that is limiting my reading speed in a major way. I read something like 500-700 wpm. This is about as fast as a friend of mine here in China reads English as her second language. I guess I pause less to look up words I don’t know but the notion of reading as fast in Chinese as I do in English seems impossible enough as it is. Her Chinese reading speed is probably faster than her English by a significant factor too.

When I asked if she subvocalizes, I first had to explain what I meant by that, and when I felt like I had succeeded, the answer was a clear no. I asked a few guys at work too (those adjacent to my desk, basically) and after struggling to explain to them as well, the answer was again mostly “no” (that or “I don’t understand”.

The sample size is obviously too small but I wonder if most Chinese readers do not subvocalize what is it about Chinese education or culture or ideographs or whatever that causes them not to develop the habit as I have for reading?

I’ve been going back and forth with him on emails and some of the questions he’s asked me I feel like I want to think about a little more so I’ve tried to use them as a basis for this post.

I think I’m in a fairly lucky position of having a bunch of pretty good friends who I can visit that are concentrated in a handful of cities in the US. It makes any visit to those cities into a good trip and if ever I do manage to move back to the US it’ll leave me in a position to hopefully avoid the awkward situation of starting out with absolutely no social network to speak of, as was the case when I moved to China.

There are certainly things I miss about the US while I am in China and things I miss about China while i am in the US. I think one of the big things I appreciate about being in China, and only realize that I have come to take it for granted when I go back to the US, is the cheapness and convenience of a lot of things. Food in particular comes to mind – it’s a really fantastic that I can basically go downstairs and across the street are 4 different hole-in-the-wall restaurants any one of which I can go to and get a delicious dinner for no more than a couple bucks, USD.

It’s a little weird to go back to the US and feel like I’m a visitor there now. I mean, every day in Beijing I am faced with this very obvious sense of being not like everybody here, but it’s a new thing to have that happen in the US, I guess. Sure, in somewhere like NY a great many people are not from there but at the same time it was an experience I am not used to and am unsure if I will ever get used to.

That all said, I’ve gotten pretty comfortable I guess. Daily routine things have not shifted in some dramatic way for me. Some people when they come to China lament the coffee options and eventually upon discovering where to buy better coffee then lament how it’s relatively expensive compared to other options. I imagine this’ll change as people in China drink more and more Coffee but we’ll see. I’m not a coffee drinker so this particular experience never really came up for me. My breakfast routine was always basic stuff like yogurt, or eggs, or oatmeal, all of which are no trouble at all.

I liked how friendly people seemed when I first moved here though now it feels a little superficial. People aren’t screaming “HELLO!” for much of any other reason as to point me out as a foreigner and demonstrate that they can. Maybe I’m being too harsh, I don’t know. I do like that in the US I can readily engage in a deeper conversation with most people simply because we have a shared language. My Chinese proficiency still really isn’t good enough for me to get into seriously meaty conversations. At the rate it’s improving I wonder if it ever will be unless I really drop everything and seriously resume studying for a while.

I don’t know, we’ll see. I’m still having a pretty good time, and still when people ask “how long will [I] be here?” I answer “as long as it stays fun and interesting.”

Where are the best Japanese restaurants in Beijing?

In terms of "where" geographically, my guess would be up near Anjialou, where I understand there to be a higher density of Japanese expats. Up there is a little pocket of a bunch of Japanese restaurants, of which I've only tried two, but both of which I liked a lot.

One is Sake Manzo but the other, next door, is my personal favorite. It's called Takenosuke and is so far one of only a couple places I've found to eat okonomiyaki here in Beijing.

Continuing with places elsewhere in the city: the only other place I've had okonomiyaki is Izaka-ya in Sanlitun. I found the okonomiyaki to not be as good but their other offerings quite tasty.

While Hatsune strikes me less a Japanese place and more a Californian take on Japanese, it does nonetheless end up on most lists of good Japanese options in Beijing.

There are a bunch of all-you-can-eat/drink types of places, be it for sushi (eg Tokugawa), or teppanyaki (eg Tairyo). While they can present a good value in the right circumstances I wouldn't argue for them being the best at most things.

There are a bunch of nondescript little Japanese-style curry places dotted around Beijing which vary a lot in quality but one I found particularly tasty is Tonkatsu and Curry Rice in Wudaokou. There's little highbrow about the place but damn if it isn't tasty.

Finally, Oden is an interesting place that places an uncommon (in my Japanese dining experiences, at least) emphasis on oden. Being a big fan of the stuff, I've liked my meals there, though the austere decor is perhaps not the most inviting.

Anyway… What is it like to be a hapa in an Asian country?

One thing for me has occasionally been the expectation of language skills. I learned no Chinese growing up and occasionally this is seen as a failure on my mother’s part. This however I suspect is not unique to being a hapa in China as I know this happens for many Asian Americans in Asia as well.

There seems to be this assumption that 混血兒 (mixed blood) people are smarter and better looking. I can’t really tell if this is just something that people say as flattery or if this is a widely held belief, though I am coming to suspect the latter.

My experience has mainly been one of a (white) foreigner in an Asian country and less so a hapa in an Asian country though. I guess unlike an actual white foreigner though, I do occasionally get mistaken for minority Chinese until I screw up in conversation and say something only a foreigner would say.

On second thought, being a hapa I find I get a lot of passes where somebody who was either fully Asian or fully something else would not. For every time I’m told the Chinese half of my family has failed to instill me with Chinese language and culture, I’ve no doubt there are many instances of it simply being chalked up to my non-Chinese half/upbringing.

In basically any situation I can choose to emphasize one half over the other as it suits me, which affords me a nice degree of flexibility and eases dodging any sort of ethnicity based assumptions that would work against me.

Edited after Owen’s answer: The above refers pretty much entirely to my experience in China. Elsewhere in Asia (India, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam) I am pretty much 100% white guy foreigner, probably in no small part as a consequence of spending my time in those countries as an obvious tourist.

Note June 8: updated here because I updated it there too.

Through hosting these movies, I’ve come to meet a whole bunch of new people in Beijing. It’s generally nice to meet new people in Beijing because over time I’ve come to notice that I lose friends pretty fast in this town. There’s no underlying drama or anything like that, only that it seems most people who I meet here are not long for Beijing, arriving and departing within the space of a year. If I’m lucky I’ll meet them early in that period and overlap with most of it. Mostly though I catch people in the middle and occasionally the end of their stays, their visits, their semesters, their job search.

So with the constant turn over in people there is a constant weakening if not breaking of those weak ties which I seem to have amassed so many of.

I wonder who I’ve known the longest here in Beijing. I guess there are a few people who I met very early on in my stay here, some even before I had even moved here, but who I don’t actually keep in touch with at all (for example, Ed I met at a dinner my parents hosted before I lived in Beijing. We never really spent much time hanging out or anything and at this point we’ll say hi when we run into one another but I feel like that’s happened less and less often as our mutual friends have drifted out of Beijing as well). But who is there who I actually keep up with regularly that I met here? I can think of maybe one or two people at most. Everybody else got here a lot later or already left.

I guess in a lot of ways that’s reflected in the notion that nearly three years is a long time to have been here to most people who hear it. There are of course the old timers, the old China hands who have been bouncing around Beijing for the better part of the last decade (my parents for example) but I don’t have all that much exposure to them. Mostly they seem to be a bit older than me, too, which has slowed my falling in with them socially.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, so I’ll cut myself short here and think on this some more.